Thanks for the Memories
by FrankandJoe3
Summary: The anniversary of his parents death, Richard Grayson deals with it the way he does every year when he's stuck at Mount Justice.


**My apologies for the note at the end of the Burning Refrigerator thing. I didn't entirely mean it like that, but some of you took it that way. So all of you dark skinned folks [trying to sound non-racist here], forgive my racist comments there. I was just really mad from a previous flame as I was typing and… well, sorry anyway. I bet you guys love hurting me, don't you? Yeah, you do. A few of you are heartless… So this story isn't revenge. It's for the reviewers. **

"It's that time of year again," Wally sighed, running a hand through his red hair.

"That time of year?" Megan repeated, confused.

Kaldur nodded, glancing at Robin out of the corner of his eye. Robin was sitting on the couch, staring forward in a sort of daze. He hadn't heard any of them walk in, nor did he notice their voices. He had been sitting like that, not moving, for the past hour, ten minutes and 15 seconds according to the stop watch Wally had been using.

"Every year that we've known Robin, so like 2 or three if even that, he'll sit just like that all day. Whenever we go on missions, Batman excuses him. We don't know what's so special about it and Robin won't tell us…" Wally explained, taking a peek at his stop watch. 

Superboy walked up to Robin slowly and poked the boy's head. Robin didn't react. He just continued to stare forward at the blank TV. A ghost of a smile flitted over his face as he continued to poke Robin's head, waiting for a reaction. The black haired thirteen year old didn't seem to react as his head just continued to bob back and forth. The others watched, amused. Superboy continued to poke Robin's head until he gave in.

"He's not moving," Superboy muttered.

Robin slowly floated back to his upright position on the couch and remained staring forward on the couch. He heard them all, he felt it all, and he sensed it all. He wanted to tell them why, but two things stopped him. One was Batman who forbade him from saying anything about his past. The second was because he knew that if he opened his mouth to speak, his voice would break and he'd start crying. That was the last thing he wanted to do, so he just sat there, absorbed in his thoughts.

This was that one day a year that some people would usually get together and celebrate. For him though, it was a miserable day. It was an anniversary. Like I said, those were usually celebrated. Not today though. This was a bad anniversary, marking the fourth year in a row that Robin had succeeded them. Four horrible years ago, the cables to their trapeze sets were laced with acid and snapped, sending Mary and John Grayson to their deaths. Their screams rang in Robin's ears, as did the crunch of their bones and the screams of the crowd.

"Robin…" Wally called in an eerie tone. "Robin…."

Robin didn't answer him. He tried to push away the memory and focus on Wally, but the more he tried not to think of it, he thought of it. He couldn't _not_ hear it.

_Mommy! Daddy! _he heard his younger self sob in pain.

Robin bit down as hard as he could on his lower lip, but for some strange reason, no matter how much pain ran through to his brain, Robin couldn't not think of it. He tried to focus on the pain, but the pain made him think of the bones cracking and a shudder ran through his body, breaking his still form.

"He's alive!" Wally exclaimed with a maniacal laugh.

The red head dashed out in front of his best friend and knelt in front of him, resting his arms on his knee.

"Dude, why are you all zombie like today?" he asked casually.

Robin glanced at Wally briefly through tear swarmed eyes, but said nothing. His throat felt heavy and full. He swallowed hard. Wally set his hands on Robin's shoulders and proceeded to repeatedly shake him. Robin was tossed around like a rag doll, but he refused to speak. That didn't stop a single tear from escaping his eyes. It rolled under the mask, almost undetected. If Wally had only shook Robin a second longer, he wouldn't have noticed. But he stopped and he saw the lone tear fall from Robin's chin to his pant leg. His eyes widened in surprise.

"Rob, you okay?" Kid Flash asked, concern lacing his voice gently.

Robin shook his head gently as another tear went to follow the first, followed by yet another. He stayed facing forward though and clearly avoided the others behind him. The tears fell silently from Robin's eyes as he slowly blinked his eyes. Wally felt his heart break gently. He found it hard to believe that Robin, the Boy Wonder, the boy who hid his eyes, the strong and mature thirteen year old, was crying. Wally reached up gently and wiped away a single tear from the edge of Robin's mask. He then sat beside the blue eyed babe on the couch.

"What's going on?" he asked gently.

Robin shook his head. His throat felt heavier and useless then before. The tears came faster, causing him to lean his arm into his hoodie sleeve and brush them away. Then Robin stood up and walked away from his best friend, his heart aching and itching to tell him everything. Tear tracks clearly visible, Robin slowly walked out of the room, letting the few tears on his face drip to the wooden floor.

"Is he… is he crying?" Megan asked, turning her head to watch Robin open his door and quickly slam it behind him.

Wally nodded, setting a confused hand to his forehead. "Yeah… he is…"

A silence fell over the four members.

"Well… what do we do?" Kaldur asked gently.

Everyone exchanged glances.

"I say we call the League," Superboy spoke first.

Everyone glanced at him, confused. "Why would we do that?"

"Batman," Superboy reminded them.

The others nodded and felt stupid almost instantly.

"I don't know about you, but I don't wanna make that call. 'Hey Batman, Robin's crying. Can you come here and help?' Come on! Do you know how stupid that'd be? He'd blame us for Robin's crying or something and murder us all…" Wally pointed out.

Kaldur shook his head. "I disagree. As of lately, Robin and Batman seem to be avoiding each other. Ever since I came back from Atlantis. I mean, they still talk, but Robin seems to still be afraid of him. I do agree though that we can't call the League for this though. One of us has to go talk to him."

Every eye fell to Wally, except Miss Martian who glanced up at Superboy to see who he was pointing at before she did. Wally groaned.

"I befriend the kid and now I have to do it? Bah humbug," he mumbled beneath his breath.

He sighed and cracked his knuckles. "Fine. Someone was to do it."

So he headed after Robin and walked to the boy's room and knocked on the door. 

"Robin, can I come in?" he called.

There was a muffled reply, so Wally took that as a yes. He pushed open the door to find Robin lying on the bed, his MP3 player deep in his ears, cranked up as loud as it could go, so even Wally could hear it. His mask was off, replaced by his sunglasses, but a few stray tears still leaked from his eyes.

"_I find the gun on the ground, cock it. Put it to my brain, scream 'DIE SHADY' and pop it_," Eminem's voice echoed around the room.

Wally froze in the doorway, nervous. He didn't know how to cheer up Robin. He knew about as much about Robin as anyone who had just looked up at him once. He slowly edged towards Robin, attempting to think of a way to cheer up his friend. His mind was blank though. Nothing came through to his brain. His heart felt heavy in his chest.

"H-Hey Rob," he began nervously.

Before he could even begin to comfort Robin or get his attention over the sound of Eminem, a knife soared past his face and planted right into the calendar across the room, plunging right through that day's date. Wally jumped back with a cry of fear. Robin, who miraculously heard Wally through the music paused his MP3 player and sat up.

"Oh, sorry about that," Robin whispered, noticing Wally's face and the knife halfway submerged in the wall.

He took the MP3 player ear plugs from his ears and turned off his music with a frown. His eyes were tear stained beneath his shades. Wally nodded gently, staring at the knife slowly. He walked over to the calendar and yanked the knife from it, holding it in his hands.

"Robin, what's with today?" Wally asked, tracing the edge of his index finger along the side of the knife curiously.

Robin wiped at his eyes again with a soft sigh.

"It's just a… a bad day…" Robin tried to explain, his voice still choked up.

Wally pouted. "Come on, I'll understand!"

Robin looked deep into his friend's eyes for a moment before replying.

"No; you're never going to understand…"

Wally folded his arms over his chest. "Well that's not fair! How do you know?"

Robin lied back down on the bed with a heavy inhale and exhale.

"Unless you find a way to go back in time with me and see, there's no way you'll understand."

Wally growled. "That's not an answer. Give me a better answer. Better yet, tell me what happened."

Robin tried to think of a way to explain it.

_Let me go back in time for you and kill your uncles and aunts and grandparents and cousins so it's only you and your parents. Then let me put you in the circus for the first nine years of your life basically. That way, you've become used to living in the circus with just your parents. Then let me tell you that I'm going to murder your parents, but not how, and murder them that night. Watch as they tumble to the ground. Hear their bones snap. Be forced to live in the horror so that every year, you have to relive it in your mind over and over again. _

_Be forced to remember their faces as they screamed. Be forced to remember your own helpless sobs and screams as you watched them hit the ground and witness the blood splatter. Face the horror that it should've been you on the trapeze with them, performing a trick for the grand finale. Learn to suffer like I did and be forced to wait, and not even get to kill the man who had it arranged. Feel my anger as you know that the man who killed them still walks this Earth. _

_Come here in my place and live, knowing that the only family you have left are an old servant and a super hero who doesn't even love you! Batman just watches over me! He protects me, but he doesn't love me! He doesn't support me, he barely even smiles at me! How would you like that Wally? How would you like feeling that pain every day? How would you like to dread waking up every morning to live? _

Robin thought all of that in his head, furiously.

Instead, he just said, "I technically became a sidekick today a few years back…"

That was a lie. If it was tomorrow, then yes, it'd be true. But no. He desired nothing more then to tell his best friend the truth, but he kept his lips shut. There was no use in getting yelled at by Batman. Wally sensed that he was lying, but he didn't care. He knew that he wasn't ever going to get a good reason out of him.

"Oh… well, if you need me, I hooked up the X-Box yesterday and I have an extra controller, as well as Call of Duty Black Ops," Wally offered, before leaving the room.

Robin longed to follow Wally, but he didn't move. He just laid there, his breath slowing and slowing as he slowly drowned beneath the sea of his thoughts.

_**MY BIGGEST RULE: IF YOU DON'T LIKE IT, DO NOT REVIEW! IF YOU DO LIKE IT, feel free. I HATE FLAMES!**_**Besides, I have depression [yeah, at an age younger than Robin], my self-esteem is… well, so low that I don't have one and even one flame causes me to sob my eyes out… well, not sob, but cry pretty hard and that's pretty embarrassing when your dad asks you what's wrong and you can't answer him…**

**And to the assholes of fanfiction who changed Robin's name to Tim Drake: go suck rotten cow innards. The creators SAID that Robin was Richard Grayson and there's a ton of proof to prove it! **

**-FrankandJoe3 /3**


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